


Mine like a Promise, like a Prayer

by tuesday



Category: The Hole the Fox Did Make - Emily Carroll
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Drowning, Gen, Ghosts, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: When Regan was two years old, she nearly drowned.





	Mine like a Promise, like a Prayer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venomspitting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venomspitting/gifts).



> Venomspitting, I took your prompt of, "Whispering woman appearing subtly in Cheryl’s dreams/nightmares while she’s pregnant with Regan or while Regan is a baby," and ended up spinning it out over the course of canon. I loved all your prompts and hope you get something you like from them. Happy Trick or Treat!

"It could have been mine," a dead woman whispered in Cheryl's ear as she dreamed. Each word was a cold breeze down the back of Cheryl's neck, and she was cold, so cold, like the leeching chill of the ocean even at summer's peak. She knew there was warmth out there, waiting to welcome her back, but down here, deep in the water and far from the sun's light, there was only cold, cold, cold. "It could have been mine."

When Cheryl woke, her warm bath had gone tepid. Her fingers were prunes. The baby was kicking like it was trying to swim, like it was trying desperately not to drown. Though she tried her hardest to pull herself together, she was shaking, shivering with something more than the wet and cold.

"It's mine," Cheryl said fiercely, desperately, palms clutched over the curve of her stomach. "It's mine, and you can't take it from me."

As the last webs of the dream faded away, Cheryl swore she heard a sound like the echo of sharp, biting laughter.

—

When Regan was two years old, she nearly drowned.

Cheryl looked away for a minute, just a minute, and when she looked back, Regan was face down in the bathwater and limp instead of at Cheryl's side, playing with her toys.

It was harder, but Cheryl switched them both to showers after that. She told herself it was just until Regan got a little older, but in truth, it would have been forever, if she'd had her way.

—

"She could have been mine," the dead woman in her dreams said, as she always did. "She could have been ours."

Cheryl knew she was dreaming, but that didn't stop her from launching forward, from wringing the woman's neck.

"She's mine," and Cheryl felt no guilt in this struggle, in the feeble arms failing to hold her back, in the flailing turned to twitching turned to dead weight. "I'll kill you a hundred times before I let you touch her."

The woman was dead, but her mouth was smiling as she said, "She could have been mine."

—

The summer after Regan turned six, one of her friends—a classmate, really, though only for the past year—invited her to their birthday party. Their parents were older, more affluent, and had a nice two-story house with a two-story garage in a neighborhood Cheryl would never be able to afford. They had an actual, in-ground swimming pool in their backyard, though Cheryl didn't know this until she got a phone call, an hour after she'd dropped Regan off with a bargain bin present and the hope she'd have fun.

Regan was six, and she'd drowned in that fancy pool in that large backyard in a nice neighborhood Cheryl was never stepping foot in again after this.

"Thank God Stephen knows CPR," little Cathy's mother said, weeping like she was the one who nearly lost a child here. "She seems fine now, but we called an ambulance, and—"

Regan was six, and this wasn't the first time she'd gone down into the water and not come back up of her own accord.

—

"She will be mine," the dead woman said, and it might be a dream, but how strange it was that she'd aged, that she was aging still. "She'll be mine."

"You're dead," Cheryl said, heartsick and weary. "Dead people don't get a say."

The dead woman did not say, "And whose fault is that?" She did not look vengeful or full of hate. She looked—smug. Knowing. She said, "She will be mine."

—

When Mrs. Clarke called, Cheryl knew. She went cold, felt it deep in her bones. She went straight to the creek, didn't even stop by the apartment first. She was in her work clothes, and her throat felt like it was bleeding, like it had been cut open on the edges of all the screams she was holding inside.

She was too late. She'd known she was too late when she first heard Mrs. Clarke's voice over the phone. The creek was a shallow bit of running water, but Cheryl knew how easy it was to drown. All it took was a single moment and maybe a little help besides. Regan's hair drifted in the water, the blonde gone dark where it was wet, and for a moment Cheryl saw another body, another girl—

But then there was just Regan, just her daughter, and there was no bringing her back this time.

—

"She's mine," and it was a girl instead of a woman, this time, though just as dead. Her words weren't whispers, but they wafted cold down the back of Cheryl's neck all the same. "She's my mother now."

"I'm your mother," Cheryl said, hands reaching forward, pleading with her eyes, her voice, her soul. " _I am._ "

A little girl with a fox's face, painful to look at, but the only reason for there to be light in Cheryl's life to see, stepped back, backed away, swallowed by the shadows lapping at her heels. She shook her head. "She's my mother now. You're just the woman who killed her."

When Cheryl woke, her face was wet. Her hands were cold. Though the creek was far away, she could hear the rush of its waters, the burbles and whispers of water against rock.

Hours later, when finally she fell back asleep, search though she might, there was no woman, no girl, no words or whispers—only the sound of water, calling to her, too.

"Please," she called back to it. "Please."

 


End file.
